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Jesus Didn’t Focus on the Middle Class

August 16, 2016

Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz write in the Washington Post about one thing that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have in common—that they don’t share with Jesus: a focus on the welfare of the middle class.

Clinton and Trump have plenty of company. Seemingly without exception, American politicians claim to prioritize the middle class. But Christians who seek to let their faith shape their public engagement must recognize that the Bible does not.

Indeed, the Bible has basically nothing to say about the middle class. The idea of a middle class didn’t even exist in the social world of the ancient Near East and the Roman Empire. But, more profoundly, the Bible is relatively silent about the middle class because it is concerned with the interests of someone else: the poor.